Pirate Bay Sold, Reportedly Going Legit

Just like Napster, Pirate Bay is now on the straight and narrow

The torrent community is reeling from the loss of file-sharing torrent service The Pirate Bay, which was sold last week to Global Gaming Factory, a Stockholm-based software developer and Internet/gaming cafe franchise.

In an unsurprising move to actually make legitimate cash on the name, GGF plans to add a compensation model to the existing Pirate Bay infrastructure and make a legal company out of it.

GGF is reportedly paying $60 million Swedish Kronor, or $7.8 million dollars, for the the controversial P2P file sharing service. GGF also acquired Peerialism, the technology company that originally developed The Pirate Bay’s file sharing platform.

"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site," said Hans Pandeya, CEO of GGF in a press release.

Less than two weeks ago, The Pirate Bay lost their appeal in Swedish court for a retrial despite a large amount of evidence to suggest that the judge was not impartial. In April, the site’s 3 founders were found guilty of assisting in copyright infringement, given a $3.9 million dollar fine and sentenced to a year in jail.

The Pirate Bay founders plan on putting the money from the sale into a foundation to promote the "freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets." As well as staying out of jail, of course.